My community allows unrestricted fireworks of any type on July 3 and 4 until 11:00 p.m. Many people complain but those who enjoy shooting them off and making noise late at night argue that it is the “sound of freedom,” so get over it. These same people are living in nice cushy homes far away from war and the horrors that go along with it. The sound of freedom is, rather, perfect quiet and contentment.

If a person lives during a time of war, as during the War for Independence, the last thing such a person wants to hear is “the sound of freedom”—loud pops and blasts of muskets and cannon. For these sounds mean that the enemy is nearby, and one’s home and life are in danger—no one wants to hear these “sounds of freedom.”

Anyone who thinks that a person wishes to hear the blasts of gun and cannon, except on the movie screen, is wrong, at least respecting those who live during war.

Life is only filled with such noise when society and government have broken down and chaos reigns. The sound of peace is quiet, with the sound of wind and birdsong, not the blasts of artificial means of death and destruction.

So my neighbors who want to hear the “sound of freedom” actually want to hear the sound of war, or an imitation thereof—they wouldn’t know what to do if the real thing came along.